Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalism in Late Victorian England by Frank Miller Turner (review)

340 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW authorhasmadegooduseof blue-books on recruiting,health,and sanitation, and hasblendedtheir reportswellwithsoldiers' memoirs.It isinteresting tofindthata witnessin •867 declared'a great many' soldiersenlistedfor 'drink' - the very assertion whichWellingtonhasbeensoabused for makingearlier;howwinter,which broughtunemployment, wastherecruitingsergeant's mostproductiveseason; how armybanks, institutedin •842 tohelpmensave, wereneglected after •86• whenthe PostOfficeSavings Bankofferedthesameservice withgreaterefficiency andprivacy ;that flogginghad nearlydiedout asa militarypunishment beforeParliament made it illegal; how, because improvementcosttaxpayers'money,sanitationin barrackslong remained soprimitive that the death rate from disease wasgrimly higheramongsoldiers thancivilians; andmuchelse besides. All told,theMarquess of Anglesey hasproduceda bookto whichthe social, aswellasthe military,historian should turn. RICHARD GLOVER Ottawa Between Science and Religion:TheReaction to Scientific Naturalismin Late Victorian England.}•R^NK MILLER TURNER. New Haven and London, Yale UniversityPress, •974. PP.x, 273.$•2.5o. Turner'sstudy,afterintroducing Victorianscientific naturalism, focuses successively uponsixoutstanding men- HenrySidgwick, Alfred Russell Wallace,FredericW.H. Myers,GeorgeJohnRomanes, SamuelButler,andJamesWard-who, whilerejecting the sufficiency of thatnaturalism, wereyetunableto adhereto Christianity. In spiteof their divergentbackgrounds and concerns - two were philosophers, two scientists, andtwomenofletters- theyarerelatedbytheirsearch forrulesofconduct and beliefcapableof validatingethicaland moralconcepts, especially thatof duty, andbytheiradoptionof non-rational elements of thoughtor experience. Turner's discussion of scientific naturalism,Huxley'sNew Nature 'begotten by science upon fact,' is suggestive, helpingto explain the cultural pre-eminence of scientists andthemissionary toneof apologists for scientific education, whose appeal far transcended mereutilitarianism. In explainingthe riseof thenewnaturalism, however,the author islessconvincing.The explanationof the declineof natural theologyis sofar over-simplified asto be misleading, and the assumption of the accessibility of scienceto popular understandingfails to recognizethe technical intricacyof much late-Victorianscience. Popularizationwasalreadyfar removed fromachievements in physical science. Turner'spartialrecognition of thisisimplicit in his statementthat scientificnaturalistspreferred Mill's Logicto Whewell's Philosophy, althoughscientists werenotusingtheformer for their research. Huxley and his supporters usedDalton'satomictheory,the principleof the conservation of energy,andthedoctrineof evolutionasthebases for theinterpretation of 'the detailed phenomenaof Life, and Mind, and Society.'For Turner's subjects, thiswasinvalidon twocounts. First,naturalistic explanations werelacking REVIEWS 341 in integrity,for they excludedpsychical phenomena.Secondly,they wronglyassumedthat science wasaltogetherrationaland empirical.Finally,they were inadequatefor the resolution of moraland ethicalissues. Christianity,variouslyattacked , wasalso unacceptable tothisgroup,whosought tofindgroundsfor morality andethics in somemiddleground. Sidgwick, professor of moralphilosophy atCambridge,foundnoethicalcriteriain nature,somaintainedhisbeliefsin deityandimmortality,seeking anempiricalbasis for thesein psychical research. Wallace,a pioneerin evolutionary biology,felt that onceman'smentaldevelopment had reacheda certainpoint,naturalselection was inoperative on man'sbody,andheaccordingly concerned himselfwithphrenology, mesmerism, andspiritualism toprovideascientific explanationforthedevelopment and progressof human nature. Turner exhibitssomeperipheral confusionin scientificmatters,for examplein advertingto the relation of sexualto natural selection, but hisprincipleargumentiswelldocumented andconvincing. Again,in examiningMyer'squestfor thegroundsof dutythroughseminalinvestigations of the subliminalself, Turner's statementthat this questwas'neither religiousnor scientific but morenearly... romantic'greatlycircumscribes bothreligionand science .Hisargument,however,isbroadlysound. Romanesaccomplished impressivescientificwork, and was led by his use of scientific methodtounhappyskepticism, whencehefledto agnosticism. Turner has someusefuldistinctions in his analysis of the latter term. Butler'spolemicwith Darwiniswellknown.Convinced of thelatter'sfraudulence,but alsoconvinced by evolutionary argumentthattherewasnopersonalGod,hetookrefugein a'comfortable nihilism.' Finally, Ward used philosophyto destroy the pretensionsof naturalism,and usedinsteadthe conceptof an activemind with three irreducible functions. Turner hasgivensixintriguingportraitswhichemphasize a generallyneglected concernwith the non-rational.His bibliographic essayprovidesa usefulaid to further exploration TREVOR H. LEVERE University ofToronto CrownandCharter:TheEarly Years of theBritishSouth AfricaCompany. JOHNS. GALBRaITH .Berkeley,Universityof California Press,•974. PP. xi, 354, maps,illus. $•2.75. This excellentand scholarlybook providesus with a definitive accountof the chartering of theBritishSouthAfricaCompany, itsoccupation ofZambesia, andthe consequences of'imperialismbycompany'1889-95.With exemplarythoroughness ProfessorGalbraithcoversagainthe alreadywell-troddenhistoricalground of Europeanexpansion intosouth-central andcentralAfrica,aswellasthecontroversialmatterof the role playedbyCecilJohnRhodesin thoseevents,to producethe best account now available of the scramble for the lands of the Ndebele. His task was noteased bytheexistence ofaconsiderable bodyofwritings - albeit ofhighlyuneven ...